"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."
- Barbara Kingsolver
My favorite writing book of all time is Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. She screams the benefits of timed writing, but I never really followed that chapter in the book, didn’t feel that way of writing would work for me. Boy, was I wrong.
In NaNoWriMo we have what are called Word Wars. A Word War is basically a timed writing, usually for ten or fifteen minutes, and the person who writes the most during that period is the winner. But what’s important isn’t that you “beat” the other person, the importance here is that it forces that pesky inner editor to leave the room while you bash the words out, and this adds to your word count.
I think a word war, or timed writing, is crucial to cutting through the murkiness of my mind when I'm stuck, and for sharpening images I wouldn’t have normally thought of while writing.
To do a timed writing, set an egg timer or writing timer for the amount of time you’d like to write. (You can also just look at the clock, but I find that having an actual timer really sets my mindset up to just get as many words as I can down on paper). You’d be surprised how many words you can get written in five minutes, and in fifteen minutes you can almost pound out an entire chapter
When the bell goes off, it’s time to start! Just throw words on the page. Don’t stop to correct typos or change words, don’t second-guess images spilling out onto the screen, do not stop to think of what comes next. If ideas follow that make no sense, or if your words seem unconnected to anything, that's ok. Let them. This is a first draft - it can be awful. No one needs to see what you’ve written. Natalie Goldberg says, "Keep your hand moving." If you're typing, it's 'keep your fingers moving,' but either way, write steadily for the time limit you've set for yourself.
Author Holly Lisle suggests that if you are having difficulty in your novel with a scene, or a problem, do a timed writing to work it out. She says: “Directly on the page where you're working (or on a separate sheet of paper if you aren't doing your book or story on a computer) write down the problem that your story is giving you, in three or four words. Drop down a line, check the time, and timed-write on that problem for ten minutes. Go get a drink of water when you're done, give yourself a few minutes to relax, then sit down and read what you wrote. More often than not, when I do this, I find the solution to the problem in the block of timed writing.”
I find that doing writing prompts really helps get my imagination going, too. Sometimes for me a prompt is just pulling an art card or photograph out of my “inspiration bin” and relating that to a character in my story. Sometimes it’s writing a prompt – a great book for writing prompts is by author Judy Reeves called A Writer’s Book of Days. There is a prompt for each day, and also each chapter is helpful on the writing process.
Holly Lisle offers the following topics for timed writings:
Some Topics for Timed Writing from Holly Lisle:
The future
Ghosts
Anger
Hope
Peace
Rage
Today
Yesterday
Tomorrow
Food
Fantasy
A color
A smell
Water
Weather
I fear ...
I love ...
I hate ...
I want ...
Wind
Walking
I Remember
Places
Hurt
Dreams
Reality
What feels good
What feels bad
Family
Who I am
Who I wish I were
What I am
What I wish I were
Who I was
What I was
So pick a theme, a prompt or a topic and choose your weapon – a pen or your fingers. Set the timer and write or type away! I promise you you’ll discover something you might not have known about your story, or characters. And you’ll come out of it feeling victorious.
~ Kathy
